Carson Productions

June 27, 1985 | JOHN VOLAND, Voland, a recent graduate of the University of Iowa, is a Times intern. and

Mark Lindsay, hired after an "exhaustive" talent search to play John Lennon in a coming television film, has been fired by NBC and Carson Productions because it was learned that the actor's real name had a disturbingly familiar ring to it--Mark Chapman. Another Mark Chapman--no relation--was convicted of assassinating the former Beatle in 1980.

John J. McMahon has been named president of United Artists Television at the new United Artists Corp. He had run Carson Productions Group since it was founded in 1980 by television personality Johnny Carson. During McMahon's tenure as its president, Carson Productions has produced the theatrical box-office success "The Big Chill" as well as several television series, specials and movies, including the recent network movie "John and Yoko: A Love Story."

George C. Scott, who in recent weeks has been seen on television as Scrooge, Fagin and Gen. George C. Patton, will be starring as "Mr. President" in a new weekly comedy series of that title, announced Friday by Fox Broadcasting Co. "Mr. President" will be Scott's first series since "East Side/West Side" aired on CBS in 1963. It is scheduled to premiere this spring on Fox's 100 affiliated stations. Ed.

July 16, 1985 | JOHN VOLAND, Voland, a graduate of the University of Iowa, is a Times intern. and

Mark McGann, a fellow Liverpudlian who already has experience portraying John Lennon, has been signed to play the slain ex-Beatle in NBC's TV movie about the life of Lennon and his widow, Yoko Ono, the network said. He replaces Mark Lindsay, who was fired June 26 by NBC and Carson Productions, the movie's co-producers, after it was revealed that Lindsay's real name was Mark Chapman, the same as that of Lennon's assassin, who is serving a life sentence in prison.

David W. Tebet, a television talent executive who recruited Johnny Carson for NBC's "The Tonight Show" and went on to become vice president of Carson's production company, died Tuesday. He was 91. Tebet died at the Coronado, Calif., home of his nephew, Dr. Ralph Greenspan, of complications from a stroke. A former theater publicist in New York, Tebet in 1959 became NBC's vice president for talent -- or as comedian George Burns liked to call him, "the vice president in charge of caring."